It’s not personal Chuck and Howard, but….

All is quiet on the Northwest front as far as actual games for our slumping Mariners and surging Rainiers. However there does seem to be a lot of activity in the blogosphere regarding the whole Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln fronts.

As many of you know I have been writing about this issue since June, especially the problem of an aging absentee ownerinJapan and how it relates to the current front office guys. I just want to say that as far as I am concerned Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong seem like decent guys with good business instincts. And yes we all know HiroshiYamauchi has trust in Howard Lincoln and unless he passes the reigns to someone else in Japan or sells the team we will probably still have Howard and Chuck running the show next year.

I have read Lincoln’s explanation of the infamous leaked e-mail in an article by ArtThiel as well as Shannon Drayer’s post. I also read both the Look out Landing and USS Mariner posts on this topic and tend to side with Geoff Baker and Art Thiel who seem to be on too the real issues. I am just an expansion blogger and of course do not have all the information but I do have my experience of following this team for 25+ years.

I usually agree with Shannon on a lot of things, but her post like the USS Mariner and Lookout Landing seem to infer that things are ok now that Jack Z. is here and the front office does not meddle anymore in baseball issues on the field. In response to that I would say that an engaged owner with good baseball savvy folks in the front office is indeed what we need. By stating that the front office does not meddle anymore, you are saying Tha a) they used to, and b) it infers that they don’t understand the game well enough to set the tone and give the organization a vision. I would say these are both bad things and we need front office guys with enough background to stay involved, not to mention an owner who cares more about his team.

It seems that as a new blogger my views are not as important as the seasoned guys who may very well have a vested interest in not upsetting the front office so as to gain access etc. This is a common complaint that is usually reserved for the main stream media, but in this case it seems Geoff Baker and Art Thiel are the guys willing to stick their necks out in order to deliver the uncomfortable truth, not the local bloggers or Shannon.

So I stick to my position that I have held all year that the absentee/uninvolvedownership, combined with HowardLincoln and ChuckArmstrong are the reason our team is in the situation it is in now.http://jeffsmariners.com